Peroxycarboxylic acids are employed not only as oxidizing agents in organic syntheses but also in the washing and/or bleaching of textiles since their activity occurs already below 80.degree. C., see for example European published application No. 37146 and Liao U.S. Pat. No. 4,370,251.
However, since solid water insoluble peroxycarboxylic acid in the pure or highly concentrated state are thermally and mechanically sensitive they have been handled in the past with phlegmatizers or stabilizers and thereby among the foremost employed are derivatives of phosphoric acid, phosphorous acid, and phosphonic acid, see e.g. European published application No. 37146, as well as diverse salts of various mineral acids, see e.g. Belgian patent No. 560389 and European published application No. 48290.
Of course, the difficulties which occur in the reaction of a water insoluble carboxylic acid and aqueous hydrogen peroxide in the presence of an acid, thus in a suspension, have been thoroughly investigated, but the solutions proposed are very expensive industrially, see e.g. Berkowitz U.S. Pat. No. 4,172,086 and European published application No. 45290 and related Liao U.S. Pat. No. 4,370,251.
In the production of higher water insoluble peroxycarboxylic acids, from about C.sub.6 it has proven to be very disturbing that the reaction mixture of hydrogen peroxide, water insoluble carboxylic acid and acid exhibits a greatly increasing foam formation with increasing molecular weight of the carboxylic acid as a result of which the handling of this reaction mixture is made most difficult.
The problem of the present invention therefore is to produce higher peroxycarboxylic acids from C.sub.6 in an industrially simpler manner.